Chicago rockers invade Oakland, doing the Sybaris warriors proud

Published 4:00 am, Friday, August 19, 2005

Caption: the band, left to right, are (NAMES TK... WE'RE FINDING OUT RIGHT NOW).

Caption: the band, left to right, are (NAMES TK... WE'RE FINDING OUT RIGHT NOW).

Chicago rockers invade Oakland, doing the Sybaris warriors proud

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Three thousand years ago, the Achaeans -- a group of Greek warriors -- founded Sybaris, a city on the gulf of what's now Taranto. Remember that? Not many rock musicians do, but then, not many have the lyrical insight of Angela Mullenhour, the 22-year-old Chicago singer who leads the rising indie-rock band Sybris -- an intentional misspelling of that ancient Greek city.

Sybris is the latest Flameshovel Records group to charge headfirst into the Bay Area rock scene. When the band makes its Bay Area debut tonight in Oakland, it will play from a fast-moving self-titled debut album and, figuratively speaking, plant another Flameshovel flag in the Bay Area rock scene. The label, like Sybris, has developed serious momentum, having also signed the popular indie-rock group Make Believe, fronted by singer Tim Kinsella, of Joan of Arc fame.

"When you start a record label, you work your way outwards," said label co-owner Jesse Woghin. "It's easy to send our Chicago bands to the East Coast, but the Bay Area is still the new frontier for us."

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Three years back, Mullenhour and Sybris' three scruffy instrumentalists met over drinks at a Chicago biker bar. Now, after the fake IDs and vodka shots, they've released a hard-hitting debut, engineered by indie-rock pioneer Mike Lust, from the band's small Flameshovel platform. So far, the press is immensely favorable. Even Pitchfork, the sometimes-poison-penned online music journal, calls Sybris "magnetic" and "dynamic."

"I was prepared to get ripped apart (by Pitchfork)," Mullenhour says by phone from Seattle's Chinatown before a show. "Nice surprise. I wasn't expecting it." Earlier this week, the band's Missoula, Mont., show fell through. "So we got a cheap motel and took it easy," she says. The following night, the group camped out in Idaho's Farragut State Park. "Just amazing," she adds.

She and the guys -- bassist Shawn Podgurski, guitarist Phil Naumann and drummer Eric Mahle -- have grown frighteningly fond of crashing on floors and tables and, sometimes, the ground. Like all the Flameshovel musicians, they've made unlikely beds of toilet bowls, kitchen sinks, car seats.

"That's always nice," Mullenhour quips, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. But despite the badges of indie-rock pride -- slumming it is an article of youth, for Flameshovel musicians -- Sybris is musically distinct from the swell of indie-rock bands now chasing Bright Eyes to the rock pulpit. Sybris is an epic band.

The epic band, in general, is an artistic notch above the guitar-rock band. Sybris is epic because they write anthems: faraway intros, slashing choruses, runaway climaxes. The album's finale, "Good Internal Clock," leaves the greatest mark. It opens with a percussive click, a somber guitar and Mullenhour's aching, scratchy voice. Soon, the guitars amplify and her voice awakens, building to a tough, go-for-broke climax.

Elsewhere on the record -- and onstage, judging by Sybris' recent Chicago show -- Mullenhour's brink-of-sadness voice combines echoes of Cat Power, Bjork and, if faintly, Pretty Girls Make Graves' singer Andrea Zollo. It's not coincidental either that Sybris' tune "The Clowns Were Hilarious" opens with a texture similar to that of a popular Explosions in the Sky ballad. Both bands' albums were mixed deftly by John Congleton at the famed Soma Studios, in Chicago.

"The album is a lot about wasting time," Mullenhour says, "but it's also about basking in the moment; about not guilt-tripping yourself."

Anyone in his or her mid-20s, caught between school years and job, self- discipline and self-indulgence, can probably relate to that theme.

"It's been a blast," says guitarist Naumann. "We've been writing new songs on the road, too, and that canceled show in Missoula was no big deal. We just hit the motel hot tub."

After tonight's show in Oakland, Sybris will rush through club dates in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana and Alabama en route to Flameshovel's showcase at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York in mid-September. But tonight's show is an important pilot for the band, and, more so, for Flameshovel.

"Sybris is very promising," Woghin, the label's co-owner, said. "The band is like, well, it's like a volcano with a drunken tornado. Or something." He added, "I'm not feeling very verbose right now."

Fortunately, Sybris' lyrics have a bit more subtlety. The band's new album offers definitive proof that breakdown, in its leanest musical form, is a strong musical device. If only the Achaeans, of Sybaris, were alive to see what their town's namesake is doing with the history..

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